The present invention is related to an information providing apparatus constituted by a computer, and a digital network such as a LAN (Local-Area Network) and a public telephone network.
Now, such an information providing apparatus will be considered. This information providing apparatus owns a client-server type structure. The client-server type structure is arranged by a personal computer, a digital network, and the like. The digital network corresponds to a LAN (Local-Area Network), a public telephone network, and the like. FIG. 28 shows a structural diagram of a general-purpose information providing apparatus.
In FIG. 28, reference numeral 2801 indicates a service providing apparatus, reference numeral 2802 represents a reproducing terminal, and reference numeral 2803 denotes a communication path.
The service providing apparatus 2801 is provided with a storage device having a large storage capacity and constructed of a hard disk unit and the like. The service providing apparatus 2801 stores contents data into this storage device, and transmits the contents data to the reproducing terminal 2802 in response to a request issued from the reproducing terminal 2802.
The reproducing terminal 2802 acquires desirable contents data from the service providing apparatus 2801 via the communication path 2803, reproduces the acquired desirable contents data, and then displays the reproduced desirable contents data. Apparently, the reproducing terminal 2802 is required to own a capability of decoding various data which constitute the contents data. As an example of the above-explained information providing manner, such contents data which is described by using the HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) in the WWW (World Wide Web) is reproduced/displayed by way of “Internet Explorer” by Microsoft, which is widely utilized so as to view home pages on personal computers. In this case, generally speaking, a personal computer is used as this reproducing terminal 2802.
Since mobile appliances are nowadays popularized, the following information providing systems as the reproducing terminal 2802 may be expected in future. That is, this forthcoming information providing system employs a portable information terminal (PDA: Personal Digital Assistants), and a portable telephone. In general, performance capabilities of a CPU (central processing unit) and a storage device employed in this reproducing terminal 2802 are low, as compared with performance capabilities of personal computers. Although this reproducing terminal 2802 cannot hardly reproduce/display contents data described by using the HTML, various performance limitations should be given, for example, only character data may be displayed, and also black/white still picture image data may be displayed.
When newly developed mobile communication networks (IMT-2000: International Mobile Telecommunications-2000) using the W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) system are popularized, the data transfer capability per unit time of the communication path 2803 may be improved, and contents data used to provide information may be widely changed such as still picture data made in a full color, and moving picture data combined with audio data.
For instance, the following idea is now considered. That is, a full-colored still picture compressed by the JPEG (Joint-photographic Experts Group) format (will be referred to as a “JPEG still picture” hereinafter) is displayed on a portable information terminal and a portable telephone. One realistic means may be conceived. That is, such a portable information terminal and/or a portable telephone is equipped with a function capable of decoding a JPEG still picture. However, this realistic means owns the bellow-mentioned several problems.
A first problem is given as follows:
A time period defined after a display request is issued and up to the display is accomplished is prolong. For example, a data amount of such a JPEG still picture which is made of 768 pixels (longitudinal direction)×1,024 pixels (lateral direction) and is taken by an electronic still camera is substantially equal to 100 K bytes. In this case, symbol “K” implies 1,024. In such a case that this JPEG still image is acquired via a mobile communication network having a data transfer capability of 64 Kbps (namely, 64,000 bits/second) and then is displayed on a portable telephone, an operator of this portable telephone must wait approximately 13 seconds until the picture data transfer operation is accomplished.
A second problem is given as follows:
That is, a total number of components of a portable information terminal and/or a portable telephone is increased. This is because that a decoder for a JPEG still picture and a storage device for temporarily storing a JPEG still picture must be provided in such a portable information terminal and/or a portable telephone. Also, since such a function is newly employed, power consumption is necessarily increased. To accept increased power consumption, a capacity of a battery must be increased. These restrictions can be hardly accepted by these terminals whose features are a compactness and light weight.
A third problem is given as follows:
That is, a portable information terminal and/or a portable telephone can be hardly operated by processing various sorts of contents data. Every time contents data having a new data format appears in the field, such a display function capable of displaying this newly formatted contents data must be provided in the portable information terminal and the portable telephone, resulting in a very difficult solution. In other words, it is practically very difficult to install such a necessary contents data reproducing software program in these portable information terminal and portable telephone every time newly formatted contents data is present. Such a program install work is generally carried out in personal computers.